CCTV: Research in relation to CW1

CCTV: Big Brother is watching you

CCTV (Closed circuit television) is a device used by Global Governments to monitor and control society. Cameras are placed everywhere you can think of in order to survey the public and keep track of their movements. It is reported that Britain has the largest CCTV surveillance system compared to any other capital in the world and is continuing to increase post the 9/11 and 7/7 age. Following the impacts of these terrorist attacks more paranoia from the government enforced more cameras to be produced increasing the control of our society. It is estimated that if you live in a capital across the globe your image is more then likely to be captured on at least 300 different cameras per day. This shrinks public privatization and regulates a society that is under control.

This form of surveillance culture draws upon Michel Foucault's Disciplinary Societies and becomes a perfect model for the panoptic system. Mills (2003 p45) clearly distinguishes that the panoptic system is an architectural device described by the eighteenth century philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, as a way of arranging people under an inspecting gaze that is institutionalized by the 'eye of power.'

Foucault used this model of surveillance within the prison to articulate how power and control work in our society Mills (2003 p45-46) comments,

'In the 21st century, an example of panoptical vision might be the use of closed circuit television in Britain's town center, where the mere presence of CCTV cameras in the streets, and the knowledge that the videos from these cameras can be viewed by police, is supposed to be enough to deter petty crime in these areas.The notion of disciplinary structures needing visibility to operate effectively is important.' Mills (2003 p45-46) 

CCTV is put in order by the Government to target and regulate their discipline over society. The enforcement of cameras is put in order to control crime and maintain an eye that constitutes power. This power produces a system where nobody can escape surveillance in a panoptic society Foucault (1975 p35) comments,

'Power has its principle not so much in a person as in a certain concerted distribution of bodies, surfaces, lights and gazes; in an arrangement whose internal mechanisms produce the relation in which individuals are caught up.'  Foucault ( 1975 p35)

These individuals are caught up in an society that is disciplined by global Governments and CCTV forms the basis of how our society is governed by the 'eye of power.'

Mills, s (2003). Michel Foucault . London: Routledge. p45-46.
Foucault, M (1975). Discipline and Punish: The birth of the prison. London: Penguin Books. p35.

At the bottom is a link to a trailer of the film Enemy of the state (1998) which is an American spy thriller about a group of rouge NSA agents who kill an US congressman and try to cover up the murder. Surveillance society is dominant throughout as the use of CCTV and tracking is predominately used to maintain power over the state.  The title Enemy of the state (1998) suggests itself that the government is corrupt and uses the power of its eye to regulate and control identities.